58
AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
accounted for by the almost interminable wars of which
Germany down to our own times has been the theatre.
The effect has been, as we have said, to lend a deep im-
print to the notions of the peasants that their interests
have nothing in common with those of the classes who
call themselves their superiors. In a German village
there is no aping of the dress, manners, or language of
the towns. The rich Bauer is proud of his position
amongst his fellow-villagers, and retaliates the contempt
which his appearance sometimes provokes amongst the
townsmen, with a peculiar kind of sneering humility that
shows how far he is from considering it necessary to
study public opinion beyond the village bounds. This
village-public opinion, if we may use the term, is how-
ever an invaluable possession for Germany, and mainly
distinguishes the German from the French national cha-
racter. It is a blessing for Germany that it was pre-
served through the tempest of the Revolutionary war.
The inhabitant of a “ dorf,” even on the French frontier,
is religiously disposed, and is careless of ridicule in fol-
lowing out his notions of right and wrong. It is not
easy to imagine a more independent development of
character individually than that of the villagers, man
towards man, and even of the two sexes towards each
other. In the courtships that are carried on for years
between young people that grow up together, there is as
much form and method, and far more security, for the
girl who is left to trust to her wits, than ladies find who
have a host of pistolled relations at their elbow. Travel-
lers are usually prevented from diving into the secrets of
village life in Germany, both by the difficulties of the
language and by the reluctance of the villagers to asso-
AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
59
ciate, or to give information beyond their own class.
The best description that we have seen is to be found in
the ‘ Tales of the Black Forest,’ by M. Auerbach, which
have been translated into English, and to which we refer
our readers in confidence that they will find in them both
information and amusement.
An advantage that was early drawn from this village
association by the farmer, may be traced through all the
land of Jülich and beyond Cologne to Bonn, in a peculiar
uniformity of tillage. The winter, summer, and fallow
crops of the villages lie all together, ah arrangement that
sprang from the custom, still in part maintained, of
grazing the stubbles after harvest, and the fallow during
its year of rest. In the Rhenish districts this primitive
mode of cultivation is generally exploded. A fallow is
occasionally left unsown once in six or seven years, but
then it is carefully and even scientifically ploughed ac-
cording to strict rule, and the village right of grazing has
shrunk to nothing. Even the peasant now would grudge
the dung that fell upon his neighbour’s field, and he seeks
by stall-feeding to enrich his heap at home to the utmost.
Habit, however, still keeps the rye and wheat, the barley
and oats, the potatoes and beet-root side by side wnere
it is practicable, and in the highlands of Nassau and the
plain of Darmstadt the traveller will find the custom in
strict observance. One serious disadvantage has how-
ever been entailed by it, in the scattered position of the
peasants’ lands ; as formerly every man had land on the
three sides, devoted to winter and summer crops, and
fallow. The villages lie usually about a mile to a mile
and a half from one another. Hence the landowner who
happens to have one portion of his land on the outskirts,